... (c) www.lobster-magazine.co.uk (Issue 54) Winter 2007/8 Last| Contents| Next Issue 54 The History of Espionage The clandestine world of surveillance, spying and intelligence from ancient times to the post 9/11 world Ernest Volkman London: Carlton, 2007, h/b, £20 This is a lavishly and creatively illustrated, large format, (i.e. slightly bigger than A4) glossy paper, coffee-table book on the history of espionage. A former journalist with Newsday, and author of many previous books on spying, Volkman knows the subject and his text is well written. Since the author covers events from ancient Egypt to post-9/11, what we ...

... , and he also acts as spokesman for United Against Injustice, whose members include, Kent Against Injustice (founded by Barbara Stone, another speaker at the meeting) and Innocent.(1) Such organisations, said McMahon, were often vilified by the authorities, and their members subjected to harassment, including telephone interference, e-mail interception, surveillance and even wrongful arrest and malicious prosecution, all of which, McMahon said, he has experienced. In addition the police refused to respond or investigate when he and his family were subjected to serious harassment – including theft, criminal damage and threats of violence – by a stalker. Authorities must be held accountable 'The key to improving our ...

... been correctly identified as part of the CIA/Mafia milieu will not be sent to jail. (1) In 1943, the prominent Italian-American anti-fascist editor, Carlo Tresca, was murdered in the streets of New York. The case against New York Mafioso, Carmine Galante of the Bonanno family, might have seemed air-tight; he was under surveillance at that time, for parole violation, and thus was placed in the murder vehicle at the time and place of the killing. But he was not arrested or brought to trial and shortly after a leading anti-Communist informant for the FBI claimed to have learnt that the Communist Party was responsible for the killing. (2) Today- ...

... policies towards Rhodesia and South Africa. Fears that Labour would alienate the CIA and NSA upon whom the British intelligence services depended for much of their technical expertise and some finance. Thanks to Pincher, we have most of this from the horse's mouth. Pincher describes, without quoting directly from, a report, probably originating with MI5, on surveillance of Wilson during January and February 1974:" ... concern about his pro-Israeli stance... anxieties that a new Wilson government might increase trade with Russia, leading to greater opportunities for KGB activity in Britain.... would enforce reductions in the Secret Service... (the report showed) strong political overtones ...

... Discussion Document (£ 1.50 plus postage from The Labour Party, 150 Walworth Road, London, SE17 1JT) With this the Labour Party has taken a significant step towards the public recognition that, as far as the spook industry is concerned, the view of this society long held by its left-wing is fundamentally correct. Coups, bugging, surveillance, wiretapping, Special Branch, moles- the first 60% of this reads like a precis of State Research.(With some conspicuous omissions: Agee/Hosenball and the ABC trial, both of which happened during Labour administrations). The second half, the section of recommendations, is less impressive. The one lesson that seems ...

... Area 51 An uncensored history of America's top secret military base Annie Jacobsen London: Orion: 2011, £20, h/b Built round interviews with participants, journalist Jacobson has written an account – not quite a history, really – of the U- 2 and Blackbird surveillance planes, and their significant role in the Cold War. There are lots of interesting snippets in here, she writes well and this is worth the time of anyone interested in the period. Presented as that, however, the book would have received little attention; hence the use of Area 51 with its overtones of deep mystery. Fair enough: the planes were developed at Area 51. ...

... the unions control the Labour Party; therefore the Soviets control the Labour Party.1 This MI5 theory led the anti-communist right to counter-organise and the author gives us a pretty detailed account of this in 1974-6: the rise of the anti-subversion lobby (he mentions Brian Crozier's ISC but not IRD); the so-called private armies, GB75 and Unison; the surveillance and bugging of many on the left; the smear campaigns 1 The author does not mention the Soviet money. MI5 had been tracking the Soviet funds in British politics since the 1920s. See Kevin Quinlan's The Secret War Between the Wars: MI5 in the 1920s and 1930s, reviewed at <http://www.lobster-magazine.co.uk/free/ ...

... focuses instead on the burglary at the Watergate buildings. He finds the media already lined up to have a go at Nixon, ignoring the details of the burglary and consequently missing the real heart of the Watergate affair. He sees the burglary as a cover for other illegal activities being carried on in the same district: namely, a CIA-controlled surveillance of a call-girl set-up which is providing information on both Democrats and Republicans in Washington. Problems arose when the operation began to be threatened with exposure because of the overlapping activities of the White House 'Plumbers unit'. More importantly, Hougan attempts to show that the 'Plumbers unit' was infiltrated by members of the CIA who were still working ...

... crime, expressions of disquiet with official explanations were voiced. If guns had been taken into the Libyan embassy, surely the intelligence agencies would have known? If there had been a Libyan embassy plan to fire at the anti-Gaddafi demonstrators on that fateful day on 17 April 1984, wouldn't this have been discovered by the authorities? After all, surveillance operations on the embassies of unfriendly states were common practice long before the early 1980s. A combination of phone taps, electronic bugs, decoded telegrams, photographs of all entrants to the building and sources within should have alerted the authorities to impending danger. Surely the Libyan gunman would have been under strict orders to avoid at all costs any ...

... ( 'Operation Table') and heard all the discussion, something all the more remarkable since the Party had known about the bug since Anthony Blunt informed the NKVD of its existence in 1940. At the time this interview took place, MI5 were tapping Klugmann's phone, his mother's phone and was having him tailed. Nothing came of this surveillance however. According to Andrews, it is most likely that 'Kim Philby, by now head of counter-espionage at MI6.... acted to protect him'. Klugmann remained in fear of exposure as a onetime NKVD agent with the attendant risk of trial, conviction and imprisonment. Klugmann had first joined the Communist Party in the spring ...